The present invention relates to burial caskets and, in particular, to devices which function to align and trim burial casket hardware.
The handles on a burial casket are used during that portion of a burial service when the pallbearers lift the casket during the carrying of the casket to the burial place or in a pre-burial service. The casket, with the body in it, may weigh several hundred pounds, and handles are therefore necessary to assist the pallbearers in moving the casket. Typically, a series of arms are connected to the side walls of a casket, with one end of each arm being affixed to the casket and the other end of each arm being configured to hold a handle. Typically, a burial casket handle is a generally straight tubular member which extends from near one end to near the other end of each side of the burial casket.
A variety of configurations of burial casket handles have been designed in the past. One such design is that disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,204,286. That patent describes a swingable burial casket handle assembly which is movable from a position directly adjacent the casket wall to a position up away from said wall, and which incorporates decorative plates designed to cover the attaching means for the handle assemblies. The disclosure of U.S. Pat. No. 3,204,286 is incorporated herein by reference as if it were a part of this application.
While the burial casket handle assembly described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,204,286 was well received by the funeral industry, since it substantially reduced the cost of manufacturing a casket contributed by the handles and their installation, this handle assembly continues to suffer from one drawback. In particular, difficulties have arisen in assembly of the casket hardware, namely, the decorative plates, arms and casket handles. During assembly, the decorative plate which hides the area of attachment of the handle arm is affixed to the wall of the casket by the use of a single bolt. Since substantial play may exist between the bolt and the aperture in the decorative plate through which the bolt is inserted, decorative plates are often misaligned on the casket wall during assembly. This problem exists where there is excessive play in a decorative plate which is held on by two handle arms, and is particularly troublesome in those caskets where a single handle arm is used to secure each decorative plate. In this instance, significant rotation about the pivot point by which the decorative plate is joined to the casket wall can occur, causing unacceptable misalignment. This in turn requires costly additional steps, e.g., that a specific, misaligned casket be removed from the assembly procedure and adjusted, or in the alternative requires that additional time and care be spent during the assembly process to insure that proper alignment is achieved.
It is, therefore, an object of the present invention to eliminate the problem of misalignment in the decorative plates affixed to burial caskets.
Another object of the present invention is to further minimize the expense associated with manufacturing burial caskets and, in particular, with assembling the handle and decorative plate portions thereof.
Yet another object of the present invention is to provide a burial casket with an alignment strip which properly orients the casket hardware affixed to the outer casket walls.
A further object of the present invention is to provide a decorative trim strip which may be easily assembled onto a burial casket in conjunction with the assembly of the burial casket handles and decorative plates.